That’s not a slogan, that’s documented history.
Israel is certainly not imperial. It has exchanged an area double its current size in the hope for a peaceful co-existence with its neighbors. It vacated unilaterally another captured territory—the Gaza Strip—even without a signed peace treaty. It turned over a sizable territory in Judea and Samaria in exchange for another yet to be fulfilled peace treaty.
The case against Israeli citizens returning and settling in areas captured in 1967 is identical to the case against Israelis settling in areas occupied in 1948.
The time variant does not change the essential point: do we Jews have the right to live and resettle in Eretz Yisrael or don’t we?
It is morally impossible to defend the latter while attacking the former. If one believes Jews have the right to a home in Tel Aviv, one cannot suggest they become immoral by living in parts of Jerusalem or Hebron.
As to apartheid—Israel may be the only country in the Middle East where Arabs get to vote in truly democratic elections and send legitimate representatives to parliament. In a region where Jews and Christians are prevented from even entering some countries, never mind enjoying equal rights, accusing Israel of apartheid has to be the most baseless accusation against Jews since the bubonic plague.
Rather than bothering much more with Beinart’s doctrine of Inaccurate Conception, let’s instead continue to revel in his unintended Ma Tovu Ohalecha Yaacov praise of the Jewish state: “It’s modern; it’s democratic; it’s pro-American.”
Amen.